Sunday, September 27, 2009

My friend from Copenhagen Nils Markvardsen (aka "the sleazy cowboy" aka Denmark's spaghetti western aficionado numero uno aka publisher of eXtase magazine!) went to the Fantastisk Film Festival a week ago in Lund, Sweden, and hooked up with Enzo Castellari(who directed Keoma, The Big Racket, The Inglorious Bastards, The Last Shark/Jaws, The New Barbarians, Bronx Warriors, and many more). Nils did a half hour interview with Castellari and promises we'll get to see in at some stage, probably online as he's not really working on a new ish of eXtase (boo-hoo!!). Great shot, Nils. "The nice gent and the Cuban freedom fighter" as I call this picture, haha.

Magnus Carlson, editor extra-ordinaire of Gory-Glory magazine, also dropped by and said hello to the ol' director of those multo violenta Italian genre flicks. Obviously, Magnus didn't have far to travel as he hails from the area anyway.

And here's a photo of Jocke Andersson who you'll recognise as a regular commen-tator (heckler? LOL) here on the Lejemorder blog. The piccie is from Jocke's visit to Luigi Cozzi's store Profondo Rosso in downtown Rome this summer. Needless to say the other gent is Cozzi. Check out Jocke's new English language blog Rubbermonsterfetishism. By the way, I just discovered Profondo Rosso actually has a webpage. It's in Italian but you can translate the site by using the Google bar.

And finally, completing the Scandinavian blog roll here (i.e. in that I mention a blog from each country, not that I mention every film blog in the Scan countries!), here's a pic of bearded Norwegian drunkard Patrick of Tales of a Bearded Movie Aficionado blog which has got one of the coolest blog logo pictures ever. Patrick also ventured to downtown Roma and shook hands with Cozzi two yrs ago.

Oh, and is the Swiss collector who just won GHOST OF GUTS EARTER from Lars Jacobsson really gonna pay for it when he finds out Lars cut the tape to pieces???

(click the scans for bigger size. In regards to the photos I wouldn't advise it though. xD)

Thanks to DSF for subscribing. More mesmerised members into my cult. Yay, spiffy! I have no idea who is behind DSF but his blog is here and anybody who left a nice comment to "that" post almost four months ago is welcome on this blog. :o)

And I forgot to link to the Flying Maciste Brothers who subbed the other day: Destructible Man.

I just finished watching QUARANTINE which is the American 2008 remake of the brilliant Spanish horror movie [REC] from 2007. I read somewhere (in Fangoria I think) that it's a re-interpretation of the story, not a remake as such, and that it's a really good film on its own. Gee, whoever wrote that could have fooled me! To me it looks like a scene-for-scene remake!! And yes if you haven't watched the original you're probably gonna think it's somewhat semi good but if you've actually watched [REC] you're most likely not gonna wanna watch the American version again but stick to the original Spanish one! Yes, the story is still good, and yes the location (the house) looks really good too, and the FX is equally good. But that's about it. Altho the dialogue in the remake follows the dialogue in the original version it seems to me that these director wanna-bees who churn out these remakes of old horror classics all believe that as long as their actors deliver the same lines as in the original it's all fine and on par with whatever they're trying to copy. Unfortunately, they often miss the whole fucken point about making the dialogue BELIEVABLE!! And in this movie it just isn't! It was the exact same problem with the remake of THE OMEN! There is not ONE moment in QUARANTINE where the female main character is believable! She overacts as if she been paid to do so. And her lines are delivered as tho they were uttered by an actor from a local 3rd rate amateur theatre! She's probably an okay actress but you don't believe for one moment that she's for real! The actress in [REC] was believable! Altho you know it's a film she stood out as if she were a real reporter in a creepy house! The entire cast of the original was believable. The whole movie was fucken believable. QUARANTINE on the other hand is a fucken cartoon. Oh, and one more thing that annoys me greatly is the lack of credit where credit is due! If you watch the documentaries on the dvd there isn't one single moment where any of the actors, director, producers, or other people behind the camera even start to mention that their film is actually a remake. They all keep kissing each other asses and talk about how they came up with everything for the film. Duh!! It wasn't very hard; they watched the original film and took it from there! Unfortunately, I'm probably gonna have to watch this plastic clone again for another upcoming review but otherwise I wouldn't wanna touch this turd again. I highly recommend the original Spanish film as it's well played and pretty bloody scary. If you MUST watch this then do yourself a favour and save it for AFTER you've watched [REC] . After having finished with the DVD I turned on the TV and one of the crappy commercial channels was showing RETURN TO THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (a sequel to the remake of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL [1999]) and altho it's probably a crappy sequel to a crappy film at least it looked a lot more fun (in a crappy, guilty pleasure way!) than QUARANTINE. Obviously I've ordered the UK disc that contains both films right away. £5 from Playcom. Yay!

About Me

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Comments from members of the Jack J cult:

Huh?

The blog title is my original 'Greek' language title for this blog. I tried with a couple of English titles but they read flabby so I decided to keep the original title even though most of you won't understand it. But, hey, it'll add an exotic spice to it! English translated titles could have been: Reflections of a Hitman, Diary of a Hitman, A Hitman Looks Back, or Memoirs of a Hitman.